Trump relishes wrecking Republicans

Four days before Saturday’s South Carolina primary, Obama improved Donald Trump’s standing with Republicans by volubly deploring him and cannily placing him in the Republican mainstream: “He says in more interesting ways what the other [Republican] candidates are saying.” Not exactly.

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Certainly not last week when Trump said, “I like the [Obamacare] mandate.” He thereby disparaged one of conservatism’s greatest recent achievements — persuading five Supreme Court justices that the mandate is not justifiable as a regulation of interstate commerce, so the Constitution’s commerce clause is not an infinitely elastic empowerment of Congress.

Trump was not saying “what the other candidates are saying” when last week he said: “Every single other [Republican] candidate is going to cut the hell out of your Social Security.” Trump so relishes causing Republican wreckage that he went on to attack House Speaker Paul Ryan. Recalling the Democrats’ 2011 ad depicting a Ryan-like figure pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair off a cliff, Trump suggested that the ad was fair commentary on Ryan’s proposed entitlement reforms. Trump’s plan for reforming entitlements probably is to get Mexico to pay for them, after it finances The Wall.

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Many South Carolina Evangelicals, like those in Iowa, showed, shall we say, Christian forgiveness toward Trump, who boasts of his sexual athleticism, embraces torture, and promises to kill terrorists’ families. Or perhaps these remarkable Evangelicals think his myriad conversions-of-convenience (his serial adjustments of his “convictions” in time for this campaign) constitute being “born again.” This is an interesting interpretation of John 3:7.

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